Brief Description:The project “Power to Pay – Cashless Campus” was started to enable a cashless payments ecosystem for micropayments. ItzCash along with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Canara Bank is carrying out this project at IIT Bombay. The project involves providing a NFC tag (sticker) to all students of IITB, these stickers can be used across all the shops (merchants) within the IITB campus to carry out cashless payments. All shops within the campus are equipped with a Point of Sale (POS) device that can read these NFC tags. The students can load money onto these tags either by physical cash at the shops or through online (net banking). The idea of the program was to introduce the students to the banking and financial payments mode along with enabling micro-payments in a cashless manner through NFC

Objective:Present the NFC as an exciting Payment Technology of the future for the use of Indian Masses – Create an application in education sector as a route to introduce a young generation to a new way to pay

Target Group: Students of IIT Bombay

Geographical Reach within India: IIT-B Campus, Powaii Mumbai

Geographical Reach outside India: Educational Institutes across various parts of the world

Date From which the Project became Operational: 29-7-2012

Is the Project still operational?: Yes

List 5 achievements of the programme/project/initiative:1. India’s first truly Cashless Campus initiative on a NFC tag module.
2. Creating a cashless payment ecosystem whereby the students of IIT-B can make payments for days together without carrying cash within their campus in a safe and secure manner.
3. India’s 1st cashless program for micro-payments in a IIT type of Institute.
4. Inculcating the concept of “Less Cash” in India’s youth through this program.
5. Acceptance of going cashless against the traditional medium of transacting by cash.

List 5 Key challenges faced while implementing the project/programme/initiative and how they were overcome:1. Building up the cashless payments ecosystem – Major change management activities undertaken with various stakeholders within the campus.
2. New Technology – There were multiple technical issues and these were countered by the persistence and rigorous followup done by the ItzCash and NPCI It teams. Lot of principal technology partners were approached, involved to achieve perfection.
3. Consumer Financial Literacy – A detailed awareness and sensitization program continues to get carried out. This is supported by multiple campaigns on email as well as SMS and over the phone.
4. Resistance from the shopkeepers / merchants at the campus towards cashless payments – We resolved this issue by educating them and hand holding them through the initial settlement cycles. We printed A/c statements and gave it out for comparing with the bank A/c. Confidence building with Merchants took a few months.
5. Multiple partner engagement – Managing multiple partners on the government side such as National Payment Corporation of India, Canara Bank and the IIT Bombay was a major challenge which was overcome by have a dedicated Project Management team with specific Account Management expertise.